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How Minerals Form

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Vocabulary

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solution: a mixture on which one substance dissolves in another
vein: is a narrow channel or slab of solutions a mineral that is much different from the surrounding rock

Outline

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Process That Forms Minerals

• Minerals that people use today are found in the crust or on the surface for billions of years
  • Minerals form in two ways;crystallization of melted materials and crystallization of materials dissolved in water
    • crystallization is the process when atoms are arranged to form a crystal structure

Minerals From Magma

• Minerals formed by hot magma cool and become crystals
  • The size of the crystals depend at the rate at which the magma cools, the amount of gas the magma contains, and the chemical composition of the magma
    • When magma remains deep below the surface, it cools slowly over many thousands of years which means that it was large, but when the magma is closer to the surface it cools much faster so the size is smaller

Minerals From Hot Water Solutions

• Sometimes the element that are needed to form a mineral dissolve in hot water which means it becomes into a solution and goes through a process of crystallization
  • a solution is a mixture in which one substance dissolves into another
    • a vein is narrow channel or slab of a mineral that different from the surrounding rock

Minerals Formed By Evaporation

• minerals form when solutions evaporate
  • Here is an experiment you can do: Take hot (boiling hot ) water and put it in a mug /put some salt also in the mug and stir
    • you will find that the salt has now disapeared but if you drink the water the salt will still be there this is like sea water
      • all you have to do to get the salt crytals back out is take the mix and put it in a dry place
        • at it drys up you can take the crystals back out and they are pretty much the same thing they have been before
  • Here is for if you are stranded near the ocean and you don't have some water any kind ( spring , fresh , clean kind)
    • Well if you have a pot (to bad if you don't) you can make a fire first, then take some sea water dont drink it already
      • you'll get a sick stomach that will last for at least 3-4 days take the water and boil it so the salt gets to hot and starts melting and it will finally dissolve into the water and you'll have some clean water to drink

Where Minerals Are Found

• most of our planet's crust is made up of common rock forming minerals
  • Least Common and Rare minerals are not distributed evenly throughout the crust.
    • in the 1800's a lot of California's rich gold deposits were found the Sierra Nevada Mts.